Do We Want It All Or Do We Just Want The Simple Things? With Vicki Jakes Human Reboot

This episode is with Vicki Jakes. Vicki is an online marketing and website optimisation consultant helping small businesses sell more stuff via their websites. She shares how following her baby getting pneumonia and her having to return to her high powered job a couple of weeks after, she had a reboot moment that she often looks back on as one of the defining moments of her life. She walked away from having it all in search of the simple things in life. Many women will resonate with this episode. There are nuggets, about feminism, how we have been conditioned to want to juggle it all and how precious time is, and lots more tips.  
6:49  
“It all kind of came together in my early 30s. And I definitely broke down kind of mentally for a little bit. I just couldn't work out what I wanted to do. And I ended up just staying in the same world and getting therapy totally helped me to stay there. But it was one of the best things I ever did actually because I haven't really burnt out again since.”
“I felt like I wanted to investigate seeing if there was something different out there. So I sort of parted ways with them after six, seven years, and it felt like a real relief, I felt a little bit institutionalised, being at the business so long, even though I could affect a lot of change culturally, it wasn't my business, being away on maternity leave as well, which meant that had felt out of the loop as many women do when they go back to the office. And after that, I never found my groove again, in my career. I went to work for a software company in Brighton, which was fun, you know, but I wasn't as senior as I had been used to being for like six, seven years, you know, I got promoted really young and you know, I'd learned an awful lot and then I kind of lost my gun and my badge if you like for a little bit.”
 
10:00  
“I realised I loved, the family life, I really wanted that and I would do anything to create more time and something switched definitely inside of me around that time, and I thought I might try and find another business that I can work at where I could be senior again and help them grow, like I did with the first agency I mentioned, and just do something really amazing again, you know, really, really helped take them somewhere. And I started shopping around kind of doing interviews, didn't realise as I started shopping around that, that I was pregnant with my second daughter.” 
“The other option was just leaving and going to get a job at this other agency. And knowing that I wouldn't have maternity leave, right. And for some reason, for some reason, I went down that path. Because what I wanted to do was short-cut the opportunity to do bigger things, because as soon as I started to have kids, the amount of time that I had just became really obvious, I didn't have time to mess around” So I took a gamble. And I said to the person interviewing me that I'm pregnant, does that make any difference and went for negotiation. And you know, that they were able to offer me a really good package. Not great money, though and again, you know, not compared to the heady heights of London, but I say this as a really entitled, you know, like white person living in Brighton, because I'm sure some people would have appreciated the salary. But again, I had these big ambitions. I thought it's okay. It's a startup vibe, I'll help grow it. And you know, I'd managed to negotiate like, you know, 12 weeks of maternity leave, I thought this would be fine. Right? This will be fine. So what started was the beginning of another burnout. That didn't happen. This was a burnout, that wasn't a burnout.” 
 
“I went into this mini maternity leave, she was overdue quite a bit. So you know, kicking around for another 10 days after my due date until she came along. And then, you know, just tried to switch off a bit. I thought I couldn't really intensely switch off but it was really unfortunate. When she was seven weeks old